Valerie
Letourneau has gone five rounds with Joanna
Jedrzejczyk as an opponent and shared the training room with
her at American Top Team, so it’s safe to say she has some insight
regarding the former strawweight champion.

Like most everyone else, Letourneau was shocked to see Jedrzejczyk
lose to Rose
Namajunas via first-round technical knockout at UFC 217.
However, the 34-year-old Canadian, who faces Kate
Jackson at Bellator 191 on Dec. 15, disputes the notion that
the Polish star fell victim to overconfidence.

“I don’t think so. It’s always been her attitude. We are very
different. I like to be very humble. I don’t talk too much. I don’t
like to show off. I think most Canadians are like that,” Letourneau
told Sherdog.com “It’s always been her attitude. But she is a
different person in the gym. She’s not cocky in the gym. She’s
close to everybody. She’s coming to the gym riding her bicycle. I
don’t see her this way. This is what matters the most to me. She’s
been training so freaking hard. This is something that inspires me
from Joanna, is how hard [she trains] after beating almost
everybody in the division. She didn’t take this fight lightly.

“That’s not the reason why she lost….but she didn’t train like she
was overconfident. That’s all I can say.”

Namajunas floored Jedrzejczyk with an overhand right early, and
then dropped her foe again with a left hook before finishing with
follow-up punches at the 3:03 mark of the opening stanza. Just like
that, Jedrzejczyk’s reign over the UFC strawweight division was
ended in a most unexpected manner.

“I was training more with her for that fight. It’s weird, but …my
jiu-jitsu game is a little more like Rose. I don’t show it so much
in a fight, but I like to go for weird submissions,” Letourneau
said. “Everything can happen in a fight, but if Rose had to win the
fight I was definitely not expecting her to win this way. I thought
maybe she could get a submission, or get something like this, but
definitely not to knock her out. That was a big upset for me.”

Jedrzejczyk had gone the full five rounds in her previous four
title defenses, including a decision triumph over Letourneau at UFC
193. Seeing her teammate’s fight with Namajunas end so abruptly
left Letourneau wanting more.

“It’s disappointing. It’s always sad to see someone doing so good,
but nobody’s invincible. It went so quick,” she said. “That’s
what’s frustrating about a first round knockout. When Jose Aldo got
knocked out [in 13 seconds by Conor
McGregor at UFC 194] you feel like you want to redo this fight,
you want to see more. I would have loved to see more of this
fight.”

Regardless, seeing Jedrzejczyk prepare has provided Letourneau with
ample motivation as she gets set to make her Bellator MMA
debut.